


Breathless

by bluecrownedmotmot



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 16:37:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7809268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecrownedmotmot/pseuds/bluecrownedmotmot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post pacifist ending. Troubles catch up to Mettaton, but Mettaton has supportive friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathless

 

“Alphys,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

“Uh huh,” said Alphys groggily.

“Alphys.”

“Yes? You say my name more than anyone else does.”

“It's a lovely name.”

“Did you just call at-” Alphys checked, “-3:18 AM to recite it to me?” The alarm clock's glowing digital display blurred into a lime-green Rorschach test when she stopped squinting.

“You picked up to hear it, beautiful,” chuckled Mettaton softly.

“I have w-work tomorrow. Couldn't you do this another time?”

Mettaton ignored her. “It's opening night tomorrow. Oh wait, it's already tomorrow, isn't it? Tonight. Could you be there, sweetheart?”

“Uh... It's Friday, right?”

“Yeah. Too caught up in your own affairs to remember which day it is, hmm?”

“I'm not caught up in anything; I'm _half asleep_ ,” protested Alphys.

“I'd like you to be there, Alphys. Bring Undyne. I'll comp you both.”

“Alright. But, um, can we get back to why I'm awake right now?”

“I. Mmm. Do you ever feel like...”

“...Feel like?”

“Like you're suffocating or something.”

Alphys fumbled around in the dark for her glasses. Not that they would correct her insight into this matter, but she nonetheless felt compelled to put them on. Her hand made contact with the frames and she clumsily set them upon the bridge of her snout with one hand. “Literally? M-maybe there's something blocking ventilation to your soul-”

“No. Yes. Um...”

“Mettaton?” Alphys sat up, suddenly quite awake.

“I just feel so bad right now, darling,” he whimpered. “I don't know.”

“B-but why?”

“Don't ask me. Everything's wonderful. Couldn't be better.”

“Do you want me to come over?”

“No, no. Really, don't worry.” Mettaton curled over on his side. He was outside on the stone tile floor of his balcony because he had felt claustrophobic in his room. He wished he could look up into the night sky. It was cloudy.

“I have felt like that,” Alphys began. “But I had a lot of things making me feel terrible at the time.”

“Mmm, you did.”

“So are you trying to tell me that you're feeling depressed?”

“Yeah. I guess that's it.”

“Why?”

Mettaton walked the hand not holding the phone to his ear along the stone, ducking it under the gap beneath the railing, all the way to the edge. “Hmm. I'm not very good at this introspective thing, darling.”

“Try.”

“I feel like you know me best, Alphys.” He pitched his hand over the edge and let it free-fall until his arm hit its maximum extended length. “I don't think anyone else understands me.”

“Well, I feel the same way about you and Undyne. I think that's normal, Mettaton. Not very many people really understand each other.”

“And now that I think about it, even you don't know everything,” said Mettaton dully.

“Like what?”

Mettaton didn't answer. “I get up in front of so many people and they don't realize who I am at all,” he continued. He looked through the hair falling over his eyes at car lights winking like fiery lightning bugs, igniting and dying in the streets below. “Why do I bother?”

“Interesting question to ask _after_ you're famous,” said Alphys. She yawned audibly, in spite of her best efforts not to.

Mettaton frowned. He retracted his hanging arm and passed it back through the balcony gap. “I'm sorry I woke you up. Go back to sleep. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes. But you'll come to my concert?”

“Yes. If you want to hang out and talk after your show, I'll be more awake.”

“Sweet dreams, Alphys.”

“'Night, Mettaton.”

They hung up.

 

Mettaton crawled inside, kicking the glass door shut. He slid into the bathtub in his bedroom, he ran cold water, and he knelt to position his head under the tap. He washed his hair, climbed out, found a towel, and rubbed the water away. Mettaton sat at his vanity to comb his damp locks, admiring his physical perfection in the mirror. It was a much favored activity of his, certainly, but he took no joy in it now. He couldn't stop obsessing about wanting his personality to be different in one way and then the other. His thoughts traveled in meaningless spirals several times, descending somewhere worse with each pass. He slammed the comb down on the surface of the vanity, causing objects to jump. He tipped his head up in frustration. This was pointless.

 

There was nothing wrong with the way he _looked_ now. He really, truly loved his body. _And now that all is well, you've just found some other aspect of yourself to pick at, haven't you?_

 

Maybe he had worn so deep a groove of self loathing that he couldn't escape, sliding back at times like these. More of a habit than a real desire. But awareness didn't make the feeling go away.

 

Mettaton jumped to his feet and paced his bedroom's periphery. He stopped a moment at a shelf to contemplate the studio glass rendition of himself he had commissioned and recently received. He briefly touched the delicate borosilicate of his likeness' arm. The glass hand was tossed up confidently, fingers splayed. If only he could absorb the vibrant life-force the frozen figure appeared to have. Lately, his own seemed rather lacking. But there was no such magic. The glass was cool to the touch.

He continued onward, returning to the balcony door. Through the glass, he could see lightning flicker across the sky, so distant from where he stood that it appeared to be caught in the clouds. He wrapped his arms around himself.

“You're fantastic, darling,” he whispered.

He wondered if the words sounded so empty when he said them to other people.

 

***

 

Mettaton was resplendent, untouchable on stage. It was impossible not to idolize his gorgeous appearance, his vivacious persona. He addressed the huge crowd between songs with ease and the audience roared through the evening with laughter, cheers, and applause. Shyren was sleek and mysterious. Her singing voice was bright at times, haunting at others. Napstablook was deliberately inconspicuous, but even they were confident and collected, playing live synthesizer effortlessly and cuing pre-recorded parts without a single hitch. Alphys and Undyne found themselves cheering just as hard as any other fans, but with more true affection in their hearts for the real monsters behind the stage illusion.

 

Alphys and Undyne waited quite a while for the crowd to clear to be let backstage. They caught Mettaton in a hallway just as the robot was leaving his dressing room in street clothes. Alphys took off toward him. He crouched and she ran into his arms.

“You were so wonderful,” she said, standing on the tips of her toes so she could rest her chin on his shoulder.

“It made me happy to know you were out there, Alphys,” murmured Mettaton, holding her tightly.

“You got a hug like that for me?” said Undyne, jogging up. She was amused that, for once, _she_ had had to catch up to her girlfriend.

Mettaton released Alphys and straightened back up. He extended his arms so that they spiraled around Undyne several times before he pulled her into a friendly squeeze. He solemnly pecked her on the cheek. “Of course,” he replied.

“Cool show. You were pretty rad.”

“Why thank you, Undyne.” He let her go. “I suppose I can unhand you go now that you've flattered me sufficiently.”

“Napstablook!” yelled Undyne, seeing the ghost glide over.

“Yes?” Napstablook asked meekly.

“You were freaking awesome up there!”

“Oh... You noticed me?” they managed.

“You _were_ on stage, my dear,” snickered Mettaton.

“I noticed your _sick_ arrangements,” said Undyne, with great admiration.

“I guess that's fine. I'd rather you noticed those,” said Napstablook thoughtfully. “Thank you.”

“My cousin,” said the robot, “You really are our true talent and the only one of us who manages to be humble.”

Shyren came from behind and rose up above Mettaton shoulder. “I am perfectly humble thank you very much,” she said primly.

“Oh my, I suppose I was thinking of just myself again,” Mettaton conceded, putting a hand coquettishly to his chin.

“What a surprise,” Shyren replied sweetly.

“Begone.” Mettaton just as sweetly swatted her away.

“You were amazing, Shyren,” called Undyne to the departing monster.

“Thanks, Undyne!” Shyren said bashfully with a wave of her fin as she fluttered back to her dressing room.

“Let's get out of here, dears,” said Mettaton. “Blooky, would you like to come with?”

“No,” said the ghost.

“Well!” laughed Mettaton.

“I didn't mean it like that,” insisted Napstablook. “I just would like to be by myself... Oh, I hope I didn't sound-”

“Darling, you deserve to rest.” Mettaton stroked the ghost's ectoplasmic head affectionately with his fingers. “We all understand.”

Undyne and Alphys nodded. Undyne pulled a CD out of her purse. “You're allowed to go on one condition,” she teased. “You've gotta sign this for me.”

“This is a mix I gave you a long time ago,” said Napstablook softly, opening the case. They took the permanent marker Undyne proffered and autographed the top of the CD carefully.

“Yep!” she said, with a grin. “Gotta have you put your mark on it now that you're kind of a big deal.”

The ghost passed the jewel case and the marker back to her and bade everyone goodnight before departing.

“Alright, beauties. We're ready,” declared Mettaton, to the two remaining monsters. He shrugged the powder pink jersey falling off his shoulder back up and picked his bag up from where he had dropped it on the floor. “Let's depart.”

 

Mettaton bought them takeout monster food and they went to Alphys' house. Undyne and Alphys ate late dinner on the carpet in Alphys' bedroom because it seemed more like a fun sleepover that way. Mettaton charged rather than eating, but he stole boba from Alphys' bubble tea whenever she wasn't looking because he liked the texture. Mettaton and Undyne arm wrestled until Alphys became concerned that some mechanism or other was bound to break in the robot's arm. They then streamed an anime movie that Mettaton and Undyne jointly selected, because Alphys' taste was usually pretty bad if anyone else's opinion was taken into consideration. They chattered throughout the entire thing.

When it was over, Undyne stretched and got to her feet. “I'm taking a shower and getting ready for bed.”

“See you when you get out,” said Alphys, starting to pick up the takeout containers.

 

Mettaton remained on his back on the floor, with his head on a pillow and his eyes closed.

“Are you all charged?” Alphys asked.

He pulled the plug out of the wall by tugging on his cord. “Alphys. If I ran out of battery, and nobody plugged me in, would I sleep forever?”

“Um. I g-guess you'd be unconscious for a while. I don't really know how long it would be, until...”

“Until I died?” He opened his dark eyes at her.

She glanced away from him. “I m-mean, you'd be f-fine for weeks, d-don't worry about it.”

“Why wouldn't I just sleep indefinitely?”

Alphys sighed and sucked a deep breath through her teeth. “Basically your soul would run out of energy. Eventually. Your body and your soul are totally separate for you, so you can survive for a long time. But it's not like stasis or anything. Why?”

“I'm tired of being awake,” he sighed.

Alphys sat back down beside the prostrate robot. “You didn't look tired tonight.”

“Of course I didn't.”

“You have people who care about you.”

“You had people who cared about you and you were still depressed. You frustrated me, but I cared about you.”

“I did, and thanks Mettaton, but it was hard to realize it.”

“Exactly.”

“You have so many people- humans, monsters- who appreciate you.”

“My fans are so far removed from me,” said Mettaton dismissively. “And humans. They'd turn on me if they knew what I was really like. They do it all the time. I dreamed about humans for so long, but most are so different than what I imagined.”

“What are you really like? What's so bad about who you are?”

“What's so bad about who you are?”

“Can you think about yourself for a moment here?”

“It's easier to contemplate other people.”

“You know,” Alphys mused, “You'd think all you think about is yourself. But it's all surface stuff that doesn't matter. You don't think about yourself at all.”

“It's too confusing,” Mettaton agreed.

“Mettaton. Please try. You can talk to me.

Mettaton sighed. “Quite honestly, Alphys, there are a lot of things. I don't want to bother you too much.”

“Maybe it would be helpful to share with others? You can talk to your cousin. You can talk to Shyren.”

“Blooky empathizes too much and we pull each other down. Shyren and I always end up bickering.”

“If you needed someone else, hey, even the people who work for you like you and would probably listen. Even your assistant seems to care.”

“I pay him to tolerate me,” Mettaton said with a shrug, “That's all.”

“Let us help you. You can call me whenever. If it's important. And I'm sure any of us would tell you the same.”

“Darling, thank you. But I feel like such a bottomless pit.”

“At least you're telling me the truth now.” Alphys took his hand. “You're not alone.”

He squeezed her fingers. “I'll try to remember that.”

 

After Undyne had returned and Alphys had gotten ready for bed, they spread blankets and pillows everywhere on the floor and dropped off to sleep. When Mettaton woke up, he felt peaceful and reassured and mildly puzzled how he could have ever felt like he had previously, as he listened to Alphys snuffle in her sleep.

When they were all up for the morning, Alphys and Undyne dropped him back off at his apartment.

 

Mettaton was fine for a while, but gradually the crushing sensation descended down upon him once again. He wandered around from room to room, trying not to feel trapped. He ended up back in his bedroom, rummaging through a box Alphys had given him. It was filled with his spare parts. He clawed through it like he'd find some magical missing piece that would fit perfectly into the black hole threatening to consume him from within.

Mettaton pinched whatever the weird thing at the very bottom of the box was and pulled it up. A ribbon cable. He flexed it, pulled it taut, looked at the copper veins running neatly parallel along its length.

 

_You are comprised of all this crap. It just covers up what you really were, doesn't it? You don't deserve to be successful. You don't deserve to have friends. You don't deserve to exist. You're lying to everyone. Worse than Alphys ever did._

 

He saw himself from outside of himself, holding the cable, ripping the cable. He banged his wrist into his hip as the thing tore, but he felt no impact.

 

_What's happening to you, poor darling? Have you finally lost it completely? Alone in your lovely apartment in the sky, surrounded by all the things you could ever want, and not a soul here to save you from yourself..._

 

From the box, he picked up a spare actuating cylinder. He clenched it as hard as he could.

 

_Everything is useless junk here and so are you. You live in a fantasy of your own making and now you can't even control it anymore. You might as well-_

 

He saw himself shake his head, aim, throw the cylinder across the room, and hit the intended mark, shattering the beautiful glass representation of himself with a beautiful crash he barely heard. He pounced upon the wreckage, pawing through the shards with a carelessness that would have caused him harm were he not made of metal. He wasn't looking for anything in particular, but he found something anyway. A heavy glass heart, unbroken other than a slight chip, that had been inside the sculpture.

He ran out onto the balcony, to a far corner of the railings, about to fling the heart away. He wanted it to explode on the pavement somewhere below.

But he couldn't do it.

He imagined the thing instead accelerating in free fall, hurting someone below. He couldn't bear that.

He instead bent over the railing like a hinge, laughing hysterically, until he felt sick with vertigo despite his detachment.

He stumbled away, back inside, and set the glass heart on his nightstand. He picked up his phone, hardly understanding or feeling what he was doing until he heard his cousin's tentative voice. He put one shaking hand on the piece of furniture to steady himself.

“Blooky,” he sobbed. “Come over?”

“Yes. Are you okay?”

“Not really.”

“Shyren and I were hanging out. Do you want her to come over too?”

“Yeah. Why not.”

“Are you going to be alright until we get there?”

“I'll think of something to do,” said Mettaton. They hung up.

 

Mettaton dragged the lower legs with articulated bare feet that Alphys had built him out of his closet. He wasn't at all good at things like this, but he desperately needed to occupy his time. He followed Alphys' detailed handwritten instructions to swap the limbs with his original pink-booted lower legs.

The sensation of being outside of himself gradually faded as he worked. He had to focus to follow the directions.

 

Napstablook had let the monsters into the apartment with their copy of the key. They alone knocked on Mettaton's closed bedroom door and glided in when the robot welcomed them. Mettaton, new legs attached, was parading around his room in orange clogs with fake orange blossoms and leaves springing out of the top.

“These are the freaking cutest, don't you think, Blooky?” asked Mettaton dreamily, trying not acknowledge the sense of impending doom he was attempting to suppress.

“Uh, they're pretty.” Napstablook floated to the pile of shattered glass. “But are you alright?”

Mettaton blinked at the remains of the sculpture. “Oh yeah.” He slid off the clogs and wiggled his toes into the carpet pile. “I'm great now. Whatever.” The robot plopped down and reached for the next pair he had laid out, black vinyl mid-calf boots with numerous pointless buckles. “Oh my god. These are perfect. Where's Shyren?”

“In your living room, with her sister.”

“Great. You're all in time for my fashion show. Prepare yourselves to admire me.”

“Will that make you feel better?” Napstablook flew over to the robot.

Mettaton slid his arms around his cousin. “Might as well give it a shot. Nothing is helping much right now.”

“I thought you felt better when you got this form?”

“I do feel better in that regard... But Alphys is right. I haven't really dealt with anything. I don't know how to start, darling. I don't know what my fucking problem is. I feel cut off from everyone.”

“We love you, Mettaton.”

“That's unfortunate because I'm such a shitty person,” wailed Mettaton, his composure falling apart again.

“Oh, you're not.”

Shyren peeked into the bedroom. She exchanged a glance with Napstablook and then she flitted up to Mettaton and threw her fins around him beside Napstablook.

“Please feel better,” she crooned.

“While the two of you are here...” Mettaton gulped, “While you're here... One of the many things that bothers me. I still feel like I abandoned both of you.”

“We forgave you,” said Napstablook.

“It hurt our feelings, but we understood,” said Shyren.

Lemon Bread crept in and snuggled up to Mettaton in the last remaining space.

“Even you,” Mettaton said to Lemon Bread, “I knew where you were, but I was too preoccupied with my own problems to try harder to send you back.”

“Kept me company, company, company,” replied Lemon Bread. It was true. When he could, Mettaton had braved the True Lab to talk to the amalgamate, even though he wasn't sure how much he got through to Shyren's sister.

“I had no idea you felt this guilty still. You can talk to us, Mettaton,” said Shyren.

“I suppose I feel like I screwed everyone over to get this form and it makes me feel like I don't deserve to be happy because of it.”

“No. That's wrong,” said Napstablook.

“We want you to be happy,” reassured Shyren. “That's the most important.”

Mettaton moaned incomprehensibly. He was silent for a long time before he spoke again. “I feel better, dears. Thanks for being here.”

The monsters let Mettaton go and he got to his feet by himself. He wiped his eyes with his gloves. “Now. I must show you all the shoes I bought for my new feet the other day. Be brutally honest.”

“How long will this take?” teased Shyren.

“Hours,” said Mettaton with a wink, smiling.

“We'd be delighted to stay as long as needed,” said Napstablook.

“Oh no, don't promise that, Blooky. We'll be here for days,” groaned Shyren.

Mettaton just grinned wider.

 

They were not, in fact, there for days, although they did stay for a long time. Mettaton's mood held even when he was alone in bed, charging. He felt like he had taken at least some small action to deal with something instead of burying it deeper, exorcised one of maybe countless hidden spectres haunting him. He turned off his ornate lamp and felt comfortable in the darkness, the last remnants of the smothered sensation lifting, at least for the time being. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> http://motmotfluttersforth.tumblr.com/


End file.
